He was all in — whether traveling, competing in a Tough Mudder contest, working in a vineyard or shooting hoops.

And now, just a few short months after the healthy, 6-5, 220-pound 20-year-old's sudden death June 10 stemming from an enlarged heart, Max Pardington's folks are honoring him in an appropriately epic way.

John and Lisa Pardington, longtime Canton residents and owners of Holiday Market at Cherry Hill and Lilley roads, launched the Live Like Max Foundation and website (www.livelikemax.org) in order to help folks they never met to get that $25 heart screening that probably would have saved their son's life.

"Our son, he was very athletic and he always lived life to the fullest," Lisa Pardington said. "He traveled the world, he went to music festivals, if there was something fun to be done or to experience he wanted to do it.

"So part of our organization, and that's why we call it 'Live Like Max,' is because we want everybody to reach their full potential."

Check it out

The Pardingtons talked about their son and the program that will be his legacy during a recent "Live Like Max" benefit game hosted by Salem's varsity girls volleyball team.

"What the symbol of it is, it's a beautiful boy who lived a clean, beautiful life and he lived life to the fullest," John Pardington said. "He was always looking over the next hill, to find the next adventure. He had traveled the world, he had been in Costa Rica, all through Europe.

"We're honoring him with this foundation strictly to raise money for healthy heart checks, because if Max had had a $25 echocardiogram he'd probably be alive today."

They collectively shook their heads, talking about how unbelievable it was to lose Max — the perfect picture of robust health — to a hidden killer.

"One thing we are hoping to achieve, through our foundation, is get parents to rise up and say a physical is not enough," Lisa emphasized. "You have to have a physical every year to play a high school sport. You do not have to have any part of a healthy heart check to play a school sport.

"But many kids are symptomatic ... it's literally three checks, a blood pressure check, an echocardiogram and an EKG (electrocardiogram). It takes less than 30 minutes and all three tests are totally painless."

Also Oct. 9 at Salem, "Live Like Max" T-shirts and wrist bands were sold with all money generated to go to the foundation, which in turn will fund healthy heart checks through William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.

"I just know it's going to be something huge," said Lisa, about the foundation. "His name's going to be everywhere."

Things are headed in that direction.

Momentum builds

With Twitter (#LiveLikeMax), Facebook and other social media abuzz with interest, the grassroots fundraising effort already eclipsed $30,000. That is enough money to help more than 1,000 people receive the heart tests. There is no end in sight to the cause, either.

Max' younger brother, Jack, and older sisters Claire and Emily were the driving force behind connecting "Live Like Max" with the various networking platforms.

"We started the hashtag, and within minutes it was trending and it stayed trending for a long time," said Jack, 16, a student at Ann Arbor Greenhills. "We all kind of felt there was something here and people cared about something like this.

"In such a tragic time all the pieces just kind of slowly came together. I think we all just knew we had to try and make something positive of something so negative. Now we have the Live Like Max Foundation."

Why there is a foundation in the first place still cuts the Pardingtons to the quick — an unbearable jolt of pain they hope to help others avoid.

On June 9, Max — a 2012 alum of Orchard Lake St. Mary's (where he played varsity boys basketball) who had just completed his second year of studies at Michigan State University — finished working a shift pruning grapes at Black Star Farms in Traverse City.

He was living Up North for the summer, to work at the vineyard and train on the beach for an Ironman competition slated to take place in August.

After his shift at work ended, Max embarked on another training session for Ironman. But soon he called his mom complaining about a racing heart.

"I used to be a nurse," Lisa recalled. "So I said 'Max, you worked all day outside you need to stop working out, hydrate, and if your heart rate continues to race you need to go to the clinic.'"

Max decided to go get some dinner and return to the Pardington family's summer home on West Traverse Bay for the night, thus foregoing stopping to see a doctor.

"He went to dinner, called and said 'I'm just going to go home and go to bed,'" John said. "Well, he went home, he went to bed and he never woke up."

Trust fund

According to an autopsy, Max's heart stopped beating due to an enlarged heart, known in medical terms as hypertropic cardiomyopathy. Toxicology reports showed nothing but caffeine in his body.

"We wish we could have that night all over again, knowing what we know now," John said. "But what we have left is to honor Max and that's what we'll spend the rest of our lives doing."

The Pardingtons intend to keep their collective foot on the gas pedal to publicize "Live Like Max" and continue generating money for the cause.

Plans are to hold a Beaumont Hospital community heart screening at Plymouth-Canton Educational Park in early 2015.

John said the family trusts that Beaumont will take the money and put it to good use.

"They know where the needs are, they have the resources," he noted. "We decided our best focus was raising the money, turning it over to the most credible hospital we're aware of, which is Beaumont, and let them spend the money as they see fit because they're a world-class hospital.

"If we can save one person because of 'Live Like Max,' our family will stand tall and I know Max will be proud as well."

tsmith@hometownlife.com

Twitter: @TimSmith_Sports

LIVE LIKE MAX

Mission: The Live Like Max Foundation has been launched by the family of the late Max Pardington, in partnership with William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. It aims to raise money to help provide high school athletes and others with an echocardiogram during routine sports physicals.

Max: The 20-year-old Pardington, a 2012 alum of Orchard Lake St. Mary's who played varsity basketball there, died unexpectedly on June 10 due to an enlarged heart.

Stats: Beaumont in 2007 started the Student Healthy Heart Check program. Since then: 10,308 adults ages 13-18 in Michigan have been screened; 975 required follow-up treatment with a cardiologist; four were found with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy -- the most serious of all heart issues that the program is trying to detect. That was the cause of Max' death, according to findings of an autopsy.

Help: Write a check to the Live Like Max Foundation; like and follow LLMF on Facebook or visit www.livelikemax.org. Every donation is 100 percent tax deductible.

Before a recent Salem volleyball game, John and Lisa Pardington of Canton talked about helping others get heart health checks through the new Live Like Max Foundation, established in their late son’s memory.
(Photo:
JOHN KEMSKI | EXPRESS PHOTO
)